In recent years, turbine engines have been increasingly utilized in a variety of applications and fields. Turbine engines are intricate machines with extensive availability, reliability, and serviceability requirements. Traditionally, maintaining turbine engines incur steep costs. Costs generally include having exceptionally skilled and trained maintenance personnel service the turbine engines. In some instances, costs are driven by replacing expensive components or by repairing complex sub-assemblies.
The pursuit of increasing turbine engine availability while reducing premature maintenance costs requires enhanced insight. Such insight is needed to determine when to perform typical maintenance tasks at generally appropriate service intervals. Traditionally, availability, reliability, and serviceability increase as enhanced insight is deployed.
The figures are not to scale. Instead, to clarify multiple layers and regions, the thickness of the layers may be enlarged in the drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawing(s) and accompanying written description to refer to the same or like parts.